BIMBO-NOUVEAU

Fashion’s Favorite Contradiction

by Victoria Nergaard

If you’re a proud owner of a profile on any gen-z-frequented social platform, I don’t need to introduce you to the nouveau bimbo. I don’t need to describe who she is, what she looks like, why she is. However, many of you are not as clinically online as me, so even though bimbofication seems to have touched every corner of the internet in the past year, I’m happy to explain.

Bunny the Bimbo

Chrissy Chlapecka

Chrissy Chlapecka, Mae Ultra, Bunny the Bimbo, are just three amongst the growing online community of BimboTok, which can be described as a LibbyLou store if the entirety of TikTok was a suburban mall. Bimbos, on the surface level, are always hot, always dressed in eye-catching ensembles made up of corset tops, micro minis, and platform shoes. But no two Bimbos are created equal, which is a particularly unique facet of the 2020s Bimbofication. Chrissy is forever dipped in pink, Mae combines Bimbo classics with goth aesthetics, Bunny adds dashes of ethereal fairy fashion to her look. Yet, aside from being sexy, the thing that unites the Bimbo movement most is a dedication to acceptance—of both the social and self-variety—as well as the advancement of social issues.

To those familiar with what Bimbo used to mean some-20 years ago, this might seem a little contrasting… But, the popularity of Bimbofication in the 2020s is because it’s been largely reclaimed by girls, gays and theys. Let’s take a walk through the history of the Bimbo.

As someone who was a child through the Y2K McBling era, Bimbo was an insult launched at the It Girls of the day. Who can forget the forever iconic—now that it’s been reclaimed anyways—Bimbo Summit New York Post cover, using the term as a weapon against three of Hollywood’s most famous at the time. The Post, unsurprisingly, used the slur to accuse them of airheadded-ness, vapidity. Criticizing ultra-sexiness that straight men crave, yet shame, satirizing the feminine. In the early 2000s, the Bimbo was a label of societal rejection.

In the era of the Free-Britney movement and the return of feminism of many varieties, however, the Bimbo has found new meaning. In 2021, the seemingly opposite qualities of sexiness and academia are not so unlikely to intersect. That not-like-other-girls meme from the late 2000s of our friendly neighborhood Bimbo picking up a book and animorphing into a serious, brunette, girl-next-door in sneakers no longer checks out. In the 2020s, a woman truly liberated is enlightened to the fact that she dresses for herself only, be it a hot pink latex mini dress or a modest muumuu. In 2021, this meme makes sense in reverse.

Today’s Bimbo’s greatest concern, aside from looking her absolute hottest and most confident, is encouraging all the girlies to express themselves however they wish. The goal is to fight for acceptance across gender and sexual identities, race and body shape, and to remind everyone that they are in fact, that bitch. Chrissy’s open and accepting TikToks eloquently address gender issues through their high-pitched, ultra-girly lilt. Mae’s content undercuts racial stereotypes of Asian women. Bunny speaks on fat-phobia and the way we perceive fat bodies in fashion. All three Bimbos, and countless others, preach that everyone and anyone is sexy exactly as they authentically are, and should be accepted as such. Femininity should not be demonized, nor should it be for the cis, white, thin girlies only. If we look through the normative, stereotypical lens of femininity, today’s Bimbo is a collision of opposites, an intersection of contrarieties. She is studied and socially concerned in spite of her hyper-femme appearance. But in an era, and on a platform, that seeks to undercut fashion and gender stereotypes, the Bimbo simply is. The fashion movement is limitless, open to all, and most importantly, fashion freedom.